How Gaming Can Learn From Netflix’s House of Cards

Explosion.com: "Netflix took the big leap into premium television this weekend by releasing their first ever original series, “House of Cards,” by putting the entire first season on all at once. Netflix believes that viewers tend to digest shows in large lumps and that their new series should be digested all 13 episodes in a row, or as close to it as your body can handle before your brain shuts it all down and forces you to sleep. "

What better place to deliver a gaming dedicated show than actually on those gaming systems exclusively? TV shows get directed to their mass audience, many not looking for game dedicated content(G4 is an example). The internet in general is much the same.

What kind of demographic will be there on the systems themselves though? People are using them to game, meaning at that point their interest is in gaming.

Tester / Pulse was made by Sony and distributed on the PSN for those interested in it. Since this is closer to their point, wouldn't that by default mean others should learn from Tester / Pulse?

Even if that is the case, there isn't a lot of gaming programing, nor does it really have a place anymore. Youtube is a fantastic place to get video reviews / gameplay, N4G is great to find reviews / news and good ol Gamefaqs is one of the best places to find tips / tricks. Remember it took Netflix YEARS to get to this point and it really falls in line with their demographic.

Most gamers want to hang out with friends or experience a new adventure. Sure some people might want to watch a show, but I can't say there will be a hole in my life if I never see another Video Game movie or crappy Cartoon series.

I get what the author is trying to say. At first glance it may seem scary to have such technology advancing to such a state but right now it's only used to provide seemingly what the majority wants. House of cards is decent and I like it, I prefer LilyHammer myself though, but it's not something technology can trick me into loving. I have an option not to watch whatever they think I may like. I found this article informative and I'm glad someone brought up Netflix. Why? Because I hear people talk about Amazon Prime Video being better. I finally tried it and...I am disappoint. Seriously, I don't know what those people are smoking because imo, Netflix beats it by miles. The only thing really sweet about Amazon Prime is the free 2 day shipping and that would be the only thing I'd use it for.

This has got to be one of the worst editorials I've read on N4G in a while... (not counting Doom / Gloom stuff)

The fact is that developers / companies DO monitor what we do / what sells and tailer their games to fit this model. How the author could be unaware (or not make reference to it) makes me wonder how much thought really went into the piece... So far we've seen Biohazard and Dead Space go from Survival Horror (though DS was never THAT much of a SH game) to practically an action title. We've also seen DmC / Ninja Gaiden 3 remove a lot of the depth fans loved, in favor of a simpler easier to pick up game. All of these choices (and many more that I didn't list) were made because companies are looking at what sells and what doesn't sell, which is no different than Netflix looking at everything little thing we do...

A lot of what we say DOES in fact impact what type of games companies make and how they make them. Back when God of War was new, pretty much everyone raved about how cool the QTE system was. All that praise resulted in companies attempting to capture the same experience and now QTE's are typically tacked on and tend to take us away from the experience / moment. (I mean how many times have you died because out of nowhere the game is like "PUSH X NOW!!!!")

There isn't really anything the game industry can learn from Netflix, since they've been doing this stuff before Netflix even existed. The thing is that you CAN'T follow patterns and make a success. It unfortunately doesn't work that way... or everyone would copy CoD (as they do) and garner the same results.